Patient location and condition signal odds of drug compliance

The degree to which Americans with chronic conditions take their medications as prescribed differs widely according to the state where they live, the conditions they have and their type of insurance coverage.

Those are the findings of a recent report based on 2012 data from the 60 million customers of CVS Caremark Corp.’s pharmacy benefit management program, which serves consumers covered by self-insured employers, private health plans and Medicare Part D. The CVS report breaks down drug adherence by state, condition and coverage on metrics such as medication possession ratio, which is based on dispensing records to show what percentage of a yearlong period patients had their prescriptions on hand to take.